One of the things that makes Iron man better than BB for me comes down to Robert Downey's dynamite performance as Tony Stark. I still think it's the best leading performance in a Superhero film. Just brilliant. Right behind that comes Bale in TDKR. Indeed, I think Bale wasn't as was utilized in BB and TDK as he was in Rises. Bale shines when he is exuding raw emotion. In Batman Begins and TDK he is playing the reserved and contemplative Bruce Wayne, which demands a sort of presence I just don't see Bale exude.

I still think the first 45 minute of Begins is some of the best stretch of filmmaking in the superhero genre, which makes the more "conventional" and light on its foot second half of the film incredibly jarring. Iron Man evades that tonal dissonance which I think is another reason it's a better film. Pepper Potts is also a far better supporting character than Rachel and Paltrow's chemistry with Tony is incredibly genuine. In BB, I cringed when Rachel kissed Bruce Wayne at the end of the film yet I was impatient to see Tony and Pepper kiss, but Favreau, in a brilliant and hilarious stroke, sidesteps that convention entirely.

We all know Iron man didn't even have a script, RDJ and Favreau had to write and improvise all the dialogue in the film. Perhaps it was that improvisation that lent the film an enormously natural presence that I had never seen in a Superhero film before. Far better than Begins' at times terrible dialogue which were little more than thinly veiled theme speak.

Much has been made and still are of Batman's notoriously incomprehensible action sequences, and while Iron Man isn't gonna impress James Cameron with its action, at least it was legible. I also found the scenes of Tony building his suit and arsenal far more entertaining (and sometimes hilarious) than Bruce building his suit.

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Alan Moore on comics:

They've lost a lot of their original innocence, and they can't get that back. And, they're stuck, it seems, in this kind of depressive ghetto of grimness and psychosis. I'm not too proud of being the author of that regrettable trend.